Appointments

Member of the Panel of Legal Chairpersons of the Police Appeals Tribunal in Northern Ireland (2006 – 2015).

Member of the Panel of Counsel to the Coroner (Northern Ireland)

Member of the Attorney General for Northern Ireland’s Panel of Counsel.

Memberships

Elected member of the Bar Council in Northern Ireland.

Representative on behalf of the Bar Council in Northern Ireland on the United Kingdom Delegation to the CCBE (Council of Bars and Law Societies for Europe)

President of the Franco-British Lawyers Society (Northern Ireland).

Chairperson of the Bar Immigration Practitioner’s Group (Northern Ireland).

Chairperson of the Subcommittee on the Amendment to the Rules of the Inn of Court in Northern Ireland.

Chair of the Bar Immigration Practitioners Group (Northern Ireland).

Member of the Commercial Bar Association (Northern Ireland).

Education

Common and Civil Law with French (LLB)

Queen’s University Belfast (1994)

Certificate in Professional Legal Studies

Institute of Professional Legal Studies QUB (1996)

MA in French and Linguistics

QUB (2007, Part-time)

Teaching Experience

Fionnuala has delivered lectures to trainee Solicitors and Barristers on immigration practice at the Institute of Professional Legal Studies, Belfast and regularly delivers CPD training lectures.

Languages

Fionnuala is fluent in French and Spanish.

Practice Summary

Fionnuala was Called to the Bar of Northern Ireland in 1996 and has an extensive public law practice with particular focus on planning and environmental law, immigration, EU law, human rights and inquests. She has significant advocacy and advisory experience before the higher courts and tribunals in Northern Ireland. Fionnuala regularly appears in inquests and is currently instructed in several high profile ‘legacy’ inquests into deaths which occurred during the ‘troubles’ in Northern Ireland. Fionnuala regularly advises and appears in EU law cases in judicial review having worked at the Court of Justice of the European Union (1999 – 2002). Fionnuala has been instructed in a number of significant judicial reviews before the High Court and Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland in recent years including:

Fionnuala is author of ‘Immigration Law in Northern Ireland, Practice and Procedure’ (Servicing the Legal System Publications, 2011) and is working on a forthcoming publication on Planning and Environmental Judicial Review in Northern Ireland with William Orbinson Q.C. She regularly delivers papers on public law and human rights including, ‘Interfaces in the Law Series, Family Law and Immigration Law, Interfaced or Intertwined?, Inn of Court in Northern Ireland (February 2014), ‘Immigration Law and Interfaces with other areas of practice (EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, automatic deportation and criminal law)’, Law Society of Northern Ireland (May 2014), ‘Domestic case-law developments on Article 8 ECHR and the best interests of the child’, Four Jurisdictions Conference, Middle Temple, London (May 2012).

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